


In These Broken Vespers

by literaryspell



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Character Death, Incest, M/M, ressurection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-09
Updated: 2011-12-09
Packaged: 2017-11-03 02:24:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/376058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/literaryspell/pseuds/literaryspell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“There is no Dark magic," Al said. "There’s just magic, and you can use it for good or bad.”  He looked up at Scorpius, and his eyes were wide, fanatic.  “And this can’t be bad.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	In These Broken Vespers

**Author's Note:**

> This is the project I've alluded to in past posts! It was written for [](http://hp-darkfest.livejournal.com/profile)[**hp_darkfest**](http://hp-darkfest.livejournal.com/), and now that reveals are up, I'm so excited to get to post it--and I really hope everyone likes it. It was co-written with [](http://secretsalex.livejournal.com/profile)[**secretsalex**](http://secretsalex.livejournal.com/) (Scorpius' part) and [](http://snarkyscorp.livejournal.com/profile)[**snarkyscorp**](http://snarkyscorp.livejournal.com/) (James' part). I wrote Al's part. It was so much fun to plan out and write--so much love has to go to my co-writers for this amazing effort. ♥

  
_  
**.Scorpius.**   
_   


“I can do it. I can do it for you.”

Albus smiled, that quirky little grin that had replaced the wide-open smile he’d had before James died. “Thank you.”

Scorpius nodded. “But you’re sure . . . “

“It’ll be fine.” Albus pulled Scorpius closer, mouthing against his collarbone. “It’ll be perfect.”

***

The night of James’ funeral was the first time Al fucked Scorpius.

Scorpius watched Albus all day, watched him standing at the graveside service, looking small in his formal robes, like a child playing at adulthood. His mother wailed openly, keening on her knees before the casket, and his father just stood there, looking bewildered. Albus and Lily stood next to them, holding hands. Scorpius thought maybe that was the moment he’d truly fallen in love with Albus—when he’d watched him take his sister’s hand as their family fell apart. There was such solidarity in it, such comfort. Such warmth.

That night in Albus’ bed, Scorpius offered himself up, let Albus slake his grief and rage and horror in Scorpius’ body, tried to absorb some of his pain. It hurt, and Albus was not gentle—was not aware enough to be gentle. But Scorpius let him. He wanted, so desperately, to be of use.

Albus held Scorpius’ hips, dragging his body back onto his cock, impaling him, tearing him apart.

_Don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me._ It echoed in Scorpius’ head like a horrible drumbeat, in time with Al’s thrusts.

When Albus pulled out and flipped him over, Scorpius was so relieved. Now, maybe, Albus would make love to him—would hover over him and gaze down at him with his haunted eyes until they _saw each other_ , really saw, and Albus would push inside him and they would be joined, together, Albus would be _inside him_ : where one of them ended, the other would begin.

Albus pushed Scorpius’ legs up, up, and up until they were sprawled on Albus’ shoulders, and Albus leaned down until Scorpius thought he might break in half under Al’s bigger, heavier body. When Albus shoved his cock back inside him, Scorpius screamed.

“Take it.” Al’s voice cracked, a rusty hinge swinging shut.

Scorpius nodded, and Albus just stared down at him, fucking him like a storm, all rolling thunder and sharp, painful lightning strikes, until Scorpius had to shut his eyes.

He didn’t know what Albus saw beneath him, but he knew it wasn’t him.

***

The first time Albus brought up the ritual, they were in bed. Scorpius thought he was joking, one of those dark, brutal jokes that Albus had started to favor after James died.

“That’s not possible. You can’t raise the dead. You can’t. Some things magic can’t fix.”

“But it can fix this,” Albus insisted. “I found the book in the library at the Manor—it’s all there.”

Scorpius winced. The idea that the book had come from the Manor made his stomach churn. “Al—look, it would be really Dark magic—“

“No.” Albus shook his head, a vehement negation. “There is no Dark magic, Scorpius. There’s just magic, and you can use it for good or bad.” He looked up at Scorpius, and his eyes were wide, fanatic. “And this can’t be bad.”

Scorpius nodded. “Yeah. Okay.” But he could hear his father’s voice ringing in his ears, pulling him away from some artefact or another in the library or the den, telling him not to touch, telling him to _put it down_ before he got hurt. And all he could remember was the fear in his father’s voice, the panic in his face.

  
_  
**.Albus.**   
_   


Scorpius' hand was sweaty in Al's, but Al just gripped it tighter, leading him through the silent Potter house and down into the cellar. Once there, no words were spoken as Al lit the lamps and cast the most powerful Silencing Spell his father had ever taught him.

The cellar brought back memories like they were alive and moving. Al had to close his eyes against it. Superimposed over the dreary, colourless present was the vibrant, glowing past. James jumping out at Al from under the stairs, his laughter turning to concern when Al couldn’t stop shaking from the fright. He'd hugged Al that day, long and warm. James dawdling in his mission of bringing up canning jars for their mother, lighting matches and bragging about a girl he'd got to suck him off that year at Hogwarts. Al could almost see himself, watching James in confused admiration, knowing there were words he could say that would fuck everything up.

He hadn’t said them then, no. But eventually, they'd come out.

Al sighed. "Let's get started."

Scorpius was hanging back by the stairs. His head dipped down towards the ground; he didn’t meet Al's eyes when he said, "I don't know about this. I mean, I'm so sorry about James—"

"Don't worry about it," Al said, turning away to roll his eyes. "I can do it without you." It was a bluff, a huge one, and the first one he'd attempted. If he'd said those words even the day before, Scorpius might have balked. Probably would have, the coward. But he wouldn’t now—Al knew him so well. Now, in the cellar, with the ingredients collected and the spell translated, Scorpius was in too deep.

Besides, Scorpius didn’t know he had anything to lose.

But Scorpius was silent long enough that Al's heart started to pound. He couldn’t lose Scorpius, not now, not when they were so close. "I'll just ask Lysander. He's almost as good as you."

Scorpius looked wounded when Al glanced sidelong at him. Al knew the jab had hit home—Lysander was almost as good a wizard as Scorpius, that was true, but they both knew it wasn’t what Al meant. Al had hooked up with Lysander a few months before, a one-off witnessed by Scorpius that had become the impetus for Al's seduction of him in turn.

"No, I want to do it. I want to help."

Al heaved his rucksack onto the table in the centre of the room and approached Scorpius. "You have no idea how much this means to me," he said, taking Scorpius' hand in his once more. You're such a good friend."

Scorpius smiled, that uneasy little Malfoy smile, like he wasn’t sure he deserved the emotions behind it. "I'd do anything for you," he said in earnest.

"I know." And Al did know. That was why he couldn’t allow himself to feel guilty. Because he knew that, if he asked, Scorpius would let him do whatever he had to do.

Midnight was still almost an hour away, so Al gave Scorpius what he obviously needed. It was only fair, after all. The least he could do. "Kiss me," he said, and Scorpius was a little ungraceful in his lurch forward to do as Al had told him. The kiss was light, innocent and undirected. Al took over, guiding the kiss, guiding Scorpius' hand to Al's crotch, swallowing the hitch in Scorpius' breath.

Al felt like an adulterer, kissing Scorpius in the cellar. In the same place he'd kissed James for the first time. That had been the last time Al had initiated a kiss until Scorpius.

He broke off the kiss and turned back to the table, holding his stomach. Quelling his nausea, Al threw a smile over his shoulder. "We'll have time for that later," he promised.

Scorpius, red-cheeked and erect, just nodded and took his place beside Al at the table. Al organized his racing thoughts. He was about to face three of the most difficult spells he'd ever attempted, all mixed into one. If any single part went even minutely awry, he'd ruin his chance forever. Everything had to be perfect.

The first section of the spell was both the simplest and the hardest of the three. It would bring James back, but only very literally. It was a proxy Apparition. It would bring James' body back from the ground and grave and straight into the cellar. Before that spell was complete, the second stage would have to begin—bringing James' spirit back. Whatever it was that made James James would be drawn into the room, hovering in the air around them until the vital third step was completed—the life spark.

Once the life spark was applied, the spell was completed. It should bring James to life and suck the spirit into the body. The life spark would also reverse any decomposition that had taken place. James would be alive and possibly conscious for that part, and Al knew it would be painful in the way a person could not bear in silence. Al shivered.

"Want me to light the candle?" Scorpius asked, his quiet voice breaking into Al's dark thoughts.

"Yeah, thanks." Al watched him do it—though a small part of the ritual, if the candle went out, the spirit would no longer be bound to the room. "Put it over there, in case there's wind." He indicated a far corner of the room, in sight but out of the way.

"Here?"

"Perfect."

Scorpius walked back and Al stared at him. Saw him for maybe the first time. Scorpius was a nice boy. He was smart, a brilliant wizard, he could be funny in a sort of self-effacing, uncertain way, and he was incredibly eager to please. Al thought maybe he could be happy with Scorpius. Or something close to happy.

He didn’t let himself dwell on it. Without James, Al was nothing. He was worthless, incomplete, alone. Scorpius could enter the James-sized hole in Al's heart, but he didn’t even reach the edges. There would always be that gap and Scorpius could never be enough.

"Drink this," Al instructed, handing Scorpius a vial of slimy black potion. "It will enhance your powers and you won't get tired."

Scorpius nodded and downed the potion. Maybe he knew right away something wasn’t quite right. He looked at Al, made Al look at him back, his grey eyes almost accusing. But then he gave that same tiny smile. "Gross."

"I know." Al cleared the table entirely. There was one potion for James to take once he was back, something that would bind him to the mortal world once more, and Al set it on one of the canning shelves.

Since the day James had died, Al had had Scorpius researching and memorizing the spells. He couldn’t say them aloud, but Al knew he wouldn’t mess up one syllable. Scorpius was a perfectionist.

"Let's start," Al whispered. He pulled out his wand and closed his eyes, sensing when Scorpius retrieved his own.

The moment the first word passed Scorpius' lips, there was a change in the room. It was colder, _eviler_. Al didn’t believe in good and evil, only intent, but there was no other way to describe the sudden and oppressive heaviness.

Scorpius' fingers grasped Al's, locking their hands together. Al choked, his throat tight. The air was hard to breathe, but Scorpius spoke on, his words low and insistent, never wavering.

Then there was a sudden crack, a flash of light, and a bang. Al and Scorpius both jerked back from the table, the noise and stench overwhelming. When Al's eyes adjusted to the light and he saw the body, he gagged, forcing his eyes closed again. "Don't stop," he said under his breath, trying not to breathe in the foul air of James' dead corpse, laying there on the table like a broken marionette, strings cut, body impossibly twisted. "Don't stop, don't stop."

Scorpius didn’t. His grip on Al's hand was stronger than Al might have given him credit for, but his words never lost momentum.

The flame on the candle rose and grew, snaking out into the room, lashing at the air. Al had the sudden sense of _James_ , of his rough laugh, his hard grin, his greedy hands. Al smiled and opened his eyes. The room was bright with the candle light, and yes, James' spirit was in the room with them, though the dark feeling was heavy as ever.

Scorpius' voice was in the background. They were so close. James was so close. Al reached into his pocket and pulled out the dagger. He'd stolen it from Aunt Hermione, who'd brought it home to research it a few days before. She'd gone mad with panic when it turned up missing, but no matter now.

Al turned to Scorpius. He saw the life spark—it couldn’t be missed, Scorpius was _glowing_ with it. He'd never looked more beautiful. Tears streaked his cheeks, he was shaking, his lips formed around words that held no meaning but all the power in the world.

The life spark coalesced, centred in Scorpius' throat, the spot beneath his Adam's apple throbbing with light, so bright Al couldn’t look right at it.

Then Scorpius stopped speaking.

"I'm sorry," Al said.

"No, Al, please—"

Al lashed out with the knife, driving it deep into Scorpius' throat. The light burst out into the room, a roar of sound deafening Scorpius' gurgling pleas. Scorpius fell to his knees, his hand still inside Al's.

On the table, the light settled, slamming into James' still body and spreading violently through every vein and capillary. The grotesque mask of James' face shifted, rot turning to youth.

Suddenly, James shook and screamed, the sounds piercing Al to his very core. He looked down at Scorpius, his grey robes saturated in blood. Scorpius' eyes went soft, and Al let go of his hand.

Scorpius fell to the floor. James sat up.

  
_  
**.James.**   
_   


The first thing James remembers is dying. It all comes to him in a rush. The cold, bitter taste of the last succulent drops of spit in his dry mouth. Lying flat on his back with a Muggle bus tire in his side and the light in Teddy's teary eyes glowing against the darkness of the sky. The way the evening smelled, as he breathed it in for the last time. The awful hitch in Teddy's sobbed _James, oh God, James_ and the knowledge that it was all over in less than the time it took to swig back a pint with Teddy back at the pub not half an hour prior.

 

Dad always said _Magic can't save you from death_ , and as he died, James understood him for perhaps the first time, really _understood_ what it meant that Dad had faced death twice but still walked around with holy protection from the beyond, the way when Dad said _I'm sorry_ he really meant it, the way when Al said _I love you_ it encompassed him like a shroud and tightened unspeakable things in James' stomach. He understood their pain and grief, his own suffering and the meaning for his life and what was to come.

Everything comes back in a rush. It is like being thrust into with sharp life, the tang bitter in James' mouth, a _taste_ , an itch, a burn—a pure, uninhibited, seething, painful hell like James has never felt before in his life, worse than dying because it just keeps at him, a Bludger of insistence pounding against his chest.

It is sudden, all of it. Life comes into him, life and love and pain and emotions that he can't grasp and things he'd felt for years and things he'd forgotten how to feel and just _feeling_ is so foreign after being in the white nothing for months. He has woken from a long, beautiful dream to this stark nightmare, to spite and greed and hate and fear and disgust and longing, and what can he do but let it all enter him at once like the crack of thunder and roll with it while it wracks through his veins?

James sits up too fast; he splutters, coughs, screams, and then is still. Something blinds him, something burns his skin, and the sheer _noise_ around him makes his ears throb. Someone is saying _James, James, James_ , unrelenting and loud. He wants to scream again, to shout to make it all go away, but all of a sudden he is filled with such fear that grips the noise from his throat. All he can do is give a quiet, awful sob as his body lurches forward, as he tumbles off the table and to the floor with a clatter.

His hands are wet when he lifts them from the floor. James looks at them, the colour thick red on his sickly pale skin. Beside him, a boy lays motionless, his light eyes hollow as they stare unseeing at the ceiling, a big hole in his throat and splatters of red blood globbing and pulsing from it like a geyser. The boy has a sense of something familiar about him, which makes James stare to try and puzzle it out, but everything is still rushing and so when it hits him who it is there, dead and cooling beside him, James lurches again and vomits on the floor beside the body.

He vomits again when he tries to speak and again when someone touches him and again when he remembers dying all over again like some grotesque carousel. Will the pain ever stop?

It takes James some time before he can mute the sobs, control the panting and the sickness that wells up inside him like a dirty spirit and threatens to choke the life out of him. When he is finally able to understand—he died, he had been somewhere else in that great hereafter, and now he has returned somehow—it makes him sick for new reasons. That someone despises him so much as to degrade his body, to kill Scorpius Malfoy, to use up his life to give James…what? Some monstrous conception of a second chance?

"What have you done?" James croaks.

He finally looks up and his dark brown eyes focus on the other person in the room. Someone familiar. Someone he loved, once upon a time. The green eyes that stare back are wide and full of tears. James has no pity for them.

"I love you," Albus pleads. "James, I love you."

Al's voice is so quiet, so sad, so pitiful, and it reminds James of the last time Al said those exact words. They'd been in the cellar then, too. James had tried to brush it off, tell Al he'd grow out of it, but they'd both known it had been building like that for years, and try as he might, James hadn't been able to stop the way Albus looked at him, the way he leered and smiled and had sweaty palms when James just ruffled his hair or gave him a friendly shove. James had never instigated anything, had never even once been inappropriate with Al, and yet there Al had stood, with big wide green eyes, spouting confessions that turned James' stomach and coming at him with an open mouth and groping hands.

James is brought back for _that_? To remember how it sickens him? To remember how he'd wanted to beat Al senseless just for thinking like that, that something could ever happen between them? To remember what it did to him after that, how he couldn't even look at Al most times and when he did it was a kind of mean annoyance, an air of irritation that he tried to secrete in waves to push Al away, because what else could he do? The only thing Al understands is _no_ , snapped firmly, from a distance. Anything else is like leading him on somehow, and James doesn't— _can't_ —return his nauseating affections.

"I missed you," Al goes on. He begins to tell the story, how he couldn't cope after the funeral, how he found the spells in books at Malfoy Manor, how everything worked perfectly and he's so happy that James is back.

James can't even look at him. He doesn't want Al to see how much it hurts, how much he wishes he was back in the grave and at peace and away from the complications of living with those green eyes and all those perverted intentions.

"I couldn't live without you."

"Stop it," James growls. He holds up his hand, unable to stand hearing Al splutter out his apologies and placations. It's twisting him in two, and he just needs a minute of time to himself to get a hold on the emotions wracking his soul. He knows this is wrong. He shouldn't be here, alive, sitting there with working lungs and beating heart next to Malfoy's corpse with Al complicating everything with his wrongness. "Stop telling me all that. Just… stop it."

Al stops speaking, but his eyes continue to stare. James can feel them, first raking over his face like Al has never seen him before and then down over his chest and his stomach and lower and it makes James look down too. He's in dress robes that smell like St. Mungo's and potions for dead people. He begins to shake and tears the robes off, throws them over Malfoy's impossibly small body to hide it, because if he looks again, he is going to lose whatever of his sanity remains.

Once he sheds his clothes, he feels better somehow, but it's cold. When Al approaches him with an old jumper and a pair of pyjama bottoms, James feels again the urge to cry and sob and wail like an infant. At the first sniffle, Al is there, his strong arms warm around James' neck and his young body fitting easily between James' legs.

James holds him, because he has nothing else to hold. He thinks how angry Dad is going to be to see him again, how he'll _know_ what Al has done, how he might even arrest Al for murder on the spot and do something to erase the magic and then James will have to go away again beneath the ground and now that he's back and holding Al, he sort of doesn't want to, even though he knows he should. He doesn't belong here. He's not _right_ here.

"I'm sorry," Albus murmurs, his voice hot against James' ear, raising goose flesh to his neck. "I'm so sorry. I'll make things right. I'll fix this. I can fix this." Al presses a small vial into James' hand, squeezes his fingers around it tightly. "But you have to drink this first. It will bind you here, back to your life."

James clutches the potion in his fist. He wonders if he squeezed hard enough, could he shatter the glass? Would that mean he'd die again, go cold and rigid in Al's arms and sink beneath the dirt?

Before James can lift the potion to his lips, Al is kissing his neck. It does things to James; it doesn't just turn his stomach, it makes his insides churn and his face warm and his fingers tingle. He wants to tell Al to stop, but he doesn't, not until Al is going in for his mouth. Then, James turns his face.

"Al, what do you want?" he asks.

There is no hesitation as Albus replies, " _Everything._ "

It makes James shudder a bit, but he points to an area across the room, where some old blankets and sacks are propped up on top of some crates. "Can you Transfigure that?" Their eyes meet and James gives a crooked grin. "Into a bed, stupid."

Al is so quick. So quick to jump up, to turn his back, to trust. James uncorks the potion, looks down into the small glass vial, and sees his life flashing past him all over again. The brilliant times with Al, before things got weird. The day Lily was born; her first day at Hogwarts. Drinking with Teddy on a tour of Italy, how proud Dad was when James landed a job at the Ministry, seeing his cousins at the Christmas party, hugging Aunt Hermione and listening to the Wireless with Uncle Ron and finally seeing the dragons in Romania with Uncle Charlie and the time Al rushed at him and pressed his open mouth against his own and rubbed against his body and looked like he would cry when James pushed him off.

James quickly dumped the potion into Malfoy's open mouth. He's not sure it'll do anything for him, but James can't accept it.

When Albus turns around, James has the vial up to his own lips. He pretends to swallow, pretends he's drank the lot.

"Gross," he says. He sees Al's eyes flick towards Malfoy's body, then back, and for a second, James thinks Al knows.

But then, Al smiles. "Yeah. Couldn't be helped."

Albus holds out his hand in offering. James takes it, squeezes it. "I love you, Al."

And though he knows maybe it isn't right, James does what Al wants anyway. He'll give Al this one thing, to take with him when James slips away back into his grave, and maybe they'll both be happy someday.


End file.
